Tinder launches advocacy campaign urging Senate to pass Respect for Marriage Act

Brooke Migdon
·3 min read

Story at a glance

  • Tinder, its parent company Match Group and the Human Rights Campaign are urging the Senate to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, a piece of federal legislation that would safeguard same-sex and interracial marriage rights.

  • A new ad campaign on the Tinder dating app will spotlight LGBTQ+ couples who met on the platform and direct current users to a landing page with an email template they can send to their senators that encourages them to support the bill.

  • The Respect for Marriage Act passed the House in July and is expected to be voted on by the Senate in the coming weeks. President Biden has signaled support for the measure.

The dating app Tinder and the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ+ rights group, on Tuesday announced the launch of an initiative urging the Senate to pass the Respect for Marriage Act.

“As a company who has created more than 75 billion matches around the world, including helping millions of LGBTQIA+ people of diverse backgrounds find their partners, we consider passage of this legislation to be imperative, and strongly support its quick passage,” reads a news release from Tinder and its parent company Match Group.

According to Tuesday’s announcement, an ad campaign on the Tinder app will spotlight LGBTQ+ couples who met on the platform and direct current Tinder users to a landing page with an email template they can send to their senators that encourages them to vote in favor of the bill.

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The measure was passed by the House in July, with 47 Republicans joining all Democrats in supporting the legislation. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill in the coming weeks, but it is unclear whether the measure has enough support among Republicans to advance.

President Biden has said he will sign the legislation into law if it passes the Senate.

The Respect for Marriage Act, introduced in July in response to an opinion by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggesting the Court revisit its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, would address a national patchwork of marriage laws by requiring states to legally recognize same-sex and interracial marriages if those unions are valid in the states in which they were performed.

Statutes or constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage remain on the books in more than 30 states, according to the Movement Advancement Project, and would be enforceable if the Court voted to overturn Obergefell, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015.

The Respect for Marriage Act would also officially repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 law that defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

A section of DOMA preventing the government from recognizing same-sex marriages for the purposes of determining federal benefits was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2013, but the remainder of the law is still technically in place, albeit unenforceable under Obergefell.

Support for marriage equality among American voters rose to an all-time high of 71 percent in June, according to polling from Gallup, and nearly 60 percent of Americans in a Politico and Morning Consult poll published in July said the right to same-sex marriage should be shielded by federal legislation.

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